Mandrill Monkey
by Maria Urso
Title
Mandrill Monkey
Artist
Maria Urso
Medium
Painting - Watercolor Painting
Description
The mandrill has an olive green or dark grey pelage with yellow and black bands and a white belly. Its hairless face has an elongated muzzle with distinctive characteristics, such as a red stripe down the middle and protruding blue ridges on the sides. It also has red nostrils and lips, a yellow beard and white tufts. The areas around the genitals and the anus are multi-colored, being red, pink, blue, scarlet, and purple. They also have pale pink ischial callosities. The coloration of the animal is more pronounced in dominant adult males. Both sexes have chest glands, which are used in olfactory communication. These, too, are more prominent in dominant adult males. Males also have longer canines than females, with an average of 4.5 cm (1.8 in) and 1.0 cm, respectively.
The mandrill is one of the most sexually dimorphic mammals due to extremely strong sexual selection which favors males in both size and coloration. Males typically weigh 19–37 kg (42–82 lb), with an average mass of 32.3 kg (71 lb). Females weigh roughly half as much as the male, at 10–15 kg (22–33 lb) and an average of 12.4 kg (27 lb). Exceptionally large males can weigh up to 54 kg (119 lb), with unconfirmed reports of outsized mandrills weighing 60 kg (130 lb) per the Guinness Book of World Records. The mandrill is the heaviest living monkey, somewhat surpassing even the largest baboons such as chacma baboon and olive baboons in average weight even considering its more extreme sexual dimorphism, but the mandrill averages both shorter in the length and height at the shoulder than these species. The average male is 75–95 cm (30–37 in) long and the female is 55–66 cm (22–26 in), with the short tail adding another 5–10 cm (2–4 in).] The shoulder height while on all fours can range from 45–50 cm (18–20 in) in females and 55–65 cm (22–26 in) in males. Compared to the largest baboons, the mandrill is more ape-like in structure, with a muscular and compact build, shorter, thicker limbs that are longer in the front and almost no tail. Mandrills can live up to 31 years in captivity. Females reach sexual maturity at about 3.5 years.
The mandrill is found in Nigeria, southern Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Congo. Its distribution is bounded by the Sanaga River to the north and the Ogooué and White Rivers to the east. Recent research suggests that mandrill populations north and south of the Ogooué river are so genetically different as to be separate subspecies. Mandrills live in tropical rainforests. They also live in gallery forests adjacent to savannas, as well as rocky forests, riparian forests, cultivated areas and flooded forests and stream beds. Mandrills will cross grass areas within their forest habitats.
The mandrill is an omnivore. It usually consumes plants, of which it eats over a hundred species. It prefers to eat fruits, but will also eat leaves, lianas, bark, stems, and fibers. It also consumes mushrooms and soil. Carnivorously, mandrills mostly eat invertebrates, particularly ants, beetles, termites, crickets, spiders, snails, and scorpions. It will also eat eggs, and even vertebrates such as birds, tortoises, frogs, porcupines, rats, and shrews. Mandrills likely will eat larger vertebrates when they have the opportunity, such as juvenile bay duikers and other small antelope. Large prey are likely killed with a bite to the nape with the mandrill's long canines. One study found the mandrill's diet was composed of fruit (50.7%), seeds (26.0%), leaves (8.2%), pith (6.8%), flowers (2.7%), and animal foods (4.1%), with other foods making up the remaining (1.4%).
(See Wikapedia)
Uploaded
May 28th, 2017
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